


Sun, Sea and Sand

by Rosie_Rues



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-02
Updated: 2006-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-22 19:21:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosie_Rues/pseuds/Rosie_Rues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I wasn't going to do this but I had a bit of dead time at work. All I had to stave off boredom was a pen and a pile of scrap paper. And look what happened. Sirius and Remus at the beach, August 1978.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sun, Sea and Sand

**Author's Note:**

> For [](http://tellmeakiss.livejournal.com/profile)[**tellmeakiss**](http://tellmeakiss.livejournal.com/) Day 01 - swords. Shameless fluff.

“What the hell is that?”

Remus was staring at him as if he was mad.

Sirius prodded him in the stomach, just above the waistband of his shorts. “It’s a sword.”

“It’s made of pink plastic.”

Some people just didn’t appreciate Muggle culture. “I thought Nym might like it.”

“Really?” Remus asked, raising an eyebrow and leaning back against the green-painted railings.

“Yes,” Sirius replied, feeling slightly hurt. Andromeda was his favourite cousin and he was determined to repay the favour in full.

“So why did you buy three of them?”

“I never said I didn’t like them too.” Sirius reached over and tapped Remus on the shoulder with one of the swords. “I dub thee Sir Moony, knight of the ice cream van.”

He got a Moony smile in reply, half-long-suffering, half-flattered. “Was that a hint?”

“One for me and one for Padfoot,” Sirius said, just to see Remus twitch.

He was foiled. Remus grinned toothily and pointed his thumb at a sign which read ‘No Dogs on the Beach.’

“I’ve been victimised!” Sirius exclaimed, swooning with his armful of swords. “Discriminated against! Prejudicified!”

Remus caught one of the swords before it slid onto the crowded beach below and began to pick his way along the prom. “You’ve missed your calling.”

“Oh?” Sirius straightened and fell in beside him, expecting the crowds to part before him.

“You should have been a lexicographer.”

“You what?” A girl in a red bikini had just wolf-whistled at him. He blew her a kiss and kept walking.

Remus rolled his eyes. “Dictionary maker.”

Sirius stopped dead. “You could do that.”

He was answered with a sigh. “You need Muggle qualifications. I checked.”

“Aren’t there Wizarding dictionaries?” He was keeping an eye open for a good bit of beach. He’d given up trying to find a big bit. All he wanted was enough sand to bury Remus in.

“Goblins,” Remus said gloomily.

“Hah,” Sirius said. “Nicodemus was right.”

He was rewarded by a look of absolute mystification on Remus’ face.

Sirius, who, after all, still had two swords to Remus’ one, said smugly, “Really, Mr Lupin, didn’t you ever listen in History of Magic?”

Then he ran for it.

Remus, who was too bloody tall for anyone’s good, particularly Sirius’, almost caught up with him within yards. Sirius, spotting a bare bit of beach, shoved his swords down the back of his t-shirt and vaulted over the railings.

He landed on the beach with a thud, fine sand spraying around him. Laughing, he took off down the beach, his feet stinging from the landing and the heat of the sand. The sun was hot on his back, and he could hear Remus laughing behind him. It could have been any summer, any year when they didn’t need to worry about growing up.

Finally, he had enough and swerved down to the sea. It was cold, the comfortable grey-green sea of the English Channel. He bit down his squeak at the cold and waded in as far as his knees, feeling the water sigh around him. He and Reggie had spent a week every summer with Aunt Elladora in the Wizarding resort of Brighthelme. The house had been as heavy and musty as home, and they had scrambled out of the window at dawn every day to escape to the beach. Aunt Elladora had called them savages, but Sirius had stood in front of Reggie and laughed at her until she clipped his ear and told him to get out of her sight - _And don’t think I’ll rescue you if you break any laws, boy._

“Hah,” Remus said breathlessly, and tapped his neck with his sword. “Off with your head.”

“You have to hit harder,” Sirius said, staring out to sea. “I’d rather not be the next Nearly-Headless Nick.”

“More like the next Peeves,” Remus said. “You’d better not haunt me.”

“Can’t think of anyone better,” Sirius said blithely, and then heard himself and blushed.

“There’s a bit of beach up there,” Remus said. “We ran far enough that we left the car park behind.”

“Ice cream?” Sirius asked plaintively.

“Still within easy walking distance.”

“Okay.” He cast a last look at the blue horizon and waded out. On the edge of the water, sand slurring between his toes, he eyed Remus, still ankle-deep.

“Don’t you dare.”

Sirius put his foot down guiltily, a moment before he could splash Remus with wet sand.

Remus smiled at him sunnily.

Sirius should have known better. The moment he turned he felt a cold splatter up his calves.

He whirled, intending to dunk the treacherous Mr Moony, but Remus was already haring up the beach past him. When Sirius caught up with him he had planted his sword in the sand and was sprawled at its foot, fanning himself.

“Warm,” he said.

“It’s August, you plonker.”

“Wasn’t complaining.”

Sirius could see that; could see the way his toes were uncurling in the sand, and the aches of the last moon were fading out of him. There were freckles coming up over his cheeks and his nose was turning pink.

“You’ll burn,” Sirius said abruptly, to excuse his staring.

“I always do.”

“You need a sunhat.”

“They look silly.”

“Ooh. Who’s the vain one now?”

“Still you.” Remus worked his shoulders down against the sand. “We should have a flag. Mark our territory.”

“They were selling them back by the armourers.”

Remus blinked. “If it only sells plastic weaponry, I think it’s a toyshop.”

Sirius grinned. “There’s a difference?”

“Only if you’re sane.”

Sirius dumped the other two swords, the funny Muggle bag with cold drinks in and the bucket and spade beside him. Then, for good measure, he stripped his t-shirt off as well.

“Cover your nose.”

Remus was definitely staring at his chest. Sirius bit back the urge to pose and announced, “I’m going shopping.”

“Again?”

He ignored that and wandered back off towards the main part of the prom. This hadn’t been such a bad idea of Prongs’, after all. _Get Moony out of London_ , he’d said. _Take him somewhere where he can’t worry about jobs or money or evil, wanking Ministry bastards. Above all, take him somewhere where Lily won’t worry about him so I could bloody well get a word in edgeways!_

He considered gate-crashing Peter’s holiday but the Norfolk Broads sounded boring. The zoo might have been fun, but they had wolves, and he didn’t think Moony would appreciate it. Moony’s idea of a good, worry-free time probably involved libraries but he could do that whenever he wanted. Eventually Sirius had decided on the beach. He’d never been to the Muggle seaside himself, so that had decided it in the end. Couldn’t get more fun than the seaside, could you?

He made his way back to the toyshop, trying not to rub his hands with glee. Remus went polite on him every time Sirius tried to buy him things. This time he had an excuse. He needed flags. Lots of flags.

Twenty minutes later he was headed back down the prom, juggling three buckets, a stripey windbreak, an inflatable mermaid, a rubber ring, two pairs of armbands (Remus had an uncanny ability to sink when confronted with large bodies of water), six packets of paper flags, a large Welsh flag and a hat.

Remus had been building sandcastles. Sirius, whose idea of a sandcastle was one turret surrounded by a very deep hole, was impressed. Remus’ sandcastle had battlements.

Remus looked up, eyes widening.

“Flags,” Sirius said, dropping everything and crashing to his knees. “I have battled the minions of evil for the sake of a flag, the flag of my country, dear to my heart-”

“How long have you been Welsh?”

“Hush, you. There were small children with windmills.”

“I am humbled,” Remus said, leaning over him to pour sand across his chest. “How can I ever repay you?”

Sirius took a moment to enjoy the warm trickle of the sand before lowing, “Ice cream.”

“What was that? I don’t think I caught it?”

“Mooooony. Ice cream.”

Remus sighed and stood up. “Chocolate or strawberry?”

“Both,” Sirius said promptly and dashed after him. “Wait. Sun hat.”

He plonked it firmly on Remus’ head, before he could look at it too closely. “There. Protect the nose of the Moony.”

Remus rolled his eyes and left.

Sirius leant happily on his pile of buckets, enjoying the somehow sublime sight of Remus Lupin wandering down the prom in a Kiss-Me-Quick hat with a daft grin on his face.

Then he turned to dealing with the windbreak. If he was going to persuade Remus to get some sun on his ribs, they’d need something for him to hide behind.

Prongs was an idiot. Who’d rather be in London with a bird than here?

The windbreak was inclined to hate him, and he was forced to slip his wand out, glancing around for any curious Muggles. Once it was up he turned his attention to embellishing Remus’ castle with flags, and then, in the true spirit of the beach, began to dig a very large hole.

It was two feet wide and a foot deep by the time an ominous voice said, “Sirius Black.”

“Hullo,” Sirius said, grinning up at him. That would teach him to splash innocent animagi with sand.

Remus was clutching two ice cream cones, their tips pressed against his hips. A line of strawberry ice cream was curling around his wrist. He was still wearing the hat.

“I have just been kissed by twelve women, two blokes and somebody of unknown gender dressed in a gorilla suit. And some old lady pinched my bum.”

“It’s not my fault you’re irresistable,” Sirius said happily.

Remus stared at him for a moment. Then he smiled. Sirius began to panic.

Still balancing the ice cream, Remus stepped down into the pit. “So that’s the only reason, hmm?”

“What else could it be, mate?” There was ice cream all over his fingers. If it hadn’t been completely beyond the bounds of friendship, even for him, Sirius would have licked it off.

“I can’t possibly imagine,” Remus said, and took a step closer.

Sirius was already pressed against the back of the pit. He was beginning to feel distinctly nervous. “R-Remus?”

“What does it say on my hat, Sirius?”

“Kiss me quick,” Sirius admitted.

And Remus did.

Sirius stared at him. He had tasted of sand and ice cream and salt, too quick a brush to quite be real. But it was real. He wasn’t going to let it be anything else.

“Moony?”

Now Remus looked embarrassed. “You asked.”

“You made me ask,” Sirius said, before his brain caught up. Remus backed away, and Sirius grabbed his wrist and drew him back against him. “It’s your hat.”

He pressed his lips to Remus’, feeling him shiver as they met, a little brush of heat quivering down his throat.

Remus drew back, and he was smiling.

Sirius grinned. This had just become the most perfect summer in his memory. He pressed against Remus, ignoring the cold drip of ice cream on his belly. “Kiss me quick.”

“No,” Remus said demurely.

Then, while Sirius was still opening his mouth to protest, Remus kissed him slowly.  



End file.
